Wind Gap Man Sues

Says Rights Violated

A Wind Gap man is seeking more than $525,000 in federal court, claiming a district justice in Easton and a Northampton County assistant district attorney conspired to deprive him of his legal rights.

Thomas W. Hower prepared the suit for himself against District Justice Joseph Leo, the Northampton County district attorney's office, Assistant District Attorney Daniel Polanski, his estranged wife, and a minister.

Hower says his estranged wife, Margaret, now living in Moore Township, and Claude M. Roney, pastor at a church in Grantville, Dauphin County, named as defendants in the action, lied when they testified at two master's hearings held at the courthouse in May and June 1984. The hearings were held after Mrs. Hower sued her husband for divorce.

On Nov. 8, 1984, Hower went to Leo's office in Easton to swear out private complaints charging Roney and Mrs. Hower with perjury. The suit says that "on this and subsequent occasions Magistrate Leo refused to file any charges against Defendants Claude M. Roney and Margaret R. Hower.

He also "refused to entertain any and all attempts by Plaintiff to even process any private criminal complaint . . . and refused to provide Plaintiff with a private criminal complaint form."

Leo, according to the suit, told Hower that his office was not the proper place to file such charges and that he should take up the matter with the district attorney's office.

The next day, Nov. 9, Hower talked to Polanski in regard to filing the private complaint. Polanski told him private complaints cannot be initiated in the district attorney's office but must be started at the district justice level. Hower called the district attorney's office again on Nov. 12, "but was once again rebuffed," the suit claims.

The suit says that Leo and Mrs. Hower are "close and personal friends," and before and while the divorce action was being filed Leo provided counseling and legal advice to her.

His "prior friendship and position of confidentiality with Margaret R. Hower represented a conflict of interest with his duty as a Magistrate to impartially afford Thomas W. Hower an opportunity to file a private criminal complaint against Margaret R. Hower," the suit maintains.

Roney, the suit says, is also a personal friend of Mrs. Hower, "and testified falsely at the master's hearing at her insistence."

Leo, Mrs. Hower, and Roney conspired to deprive Hower of "his constitutional right to free access to the Court System in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."

Polanski, the suit says, made false representations to Hower, blocking his right to access. His and Leo's actions, which the complaint says were "wilful," constitute "a conspiracy by officials acting under color of State Law to determine who and on what conditions individuals shall have a right of access to the legal system. . . ."

As a result of the alleged conspiracy, Hower has suffered and will continue to suffer "damages from deprivation, humiliation, stress and embarrassment," the suit says.

His health has been impaired "through the constant strain and continual rejection of his attempts to clear his name, . . . " and his "emotional stability has deteriorated to the point where he must seek constant medical treatment as a direct result of the conspiracy against him. . . ."

Hower is seeking $25,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 for loss of his civil rights.